Word: booming
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...Although India's current economic boom has been criticized for unevenly benefiting the rich, new wealth is percolating down in many parts of the country to newly empowered members of the working class such as Padma Kondababu, a 40-year-old maid in Madras. The first woman in her family to work outside the home, Kondababu makes $85 a month, a good salary by Indian standards. Whatever she can save, she says, she uses to buy gold, sometimes even in $12 installments?enough for tiny stud earrings. "It's a matter of pride for people like me to buy gold...
...many ways, gold lust is a relic of the bad old India?an India of weak investor rights and shaky financial systems, where people distrusted banks and the stock market and preferred to store their wealth in tangible assets, chiefly gold and property. The recent economic boom has given Indians a range of sophisticated and relatively secure financial instruments: mutual funds, stocks, bonds, even abstract art. Richer Indians are, indeed, diversifying their investments. "At the top end of society, yes, [gold] consumption is beginning to decrease," says K. Shivram, a vice president of the World Gold Council in Madras...
...despite the current boom, the number of people who see gold as a sound investment may be dwindling. The recent surge in bullion prices is keeping some Indians away from the gold stores, even though the wedding season, traditionally a time of heavy buying, has started, says Padmanaban, the Madras jewelry-store owner. "People have just stopped coming for two, three weeks," he says. "But in the end, they will accept this price. They have no other choice. They must buy gold for weddings." Won't Indians stop buying once they begin to understand they can get better returns...
...Laura Mills of Merrill Lynch in London. Pay-TV operator British Sky Broadcasting is buying the British broadband network Easynet for $367 million. Deutsche Telekom is trying to buy back the outstanding shares of T-Online, the Internet services arm it spun off at the height of the dotcom boom. And Italy's Tiscali and Fastweb are reported to be seeking investors to help them take on Telecom Italia in that country's race for triple-play market share. The wave of wheeling and dealing clearly has risks. NTL, for example, is still hashing out the terms...
...Chinese astrology, the coming Year of the Dog will be a prosperous one?particularly if you were born under that sign (or in a rabbit, tiger or horse year). Chinese restaurateurs and transport operators certainly don't need to be told twice: the holiday period typically brings a business boom as Chinese the world over throw lavish banquets, go on vacation or head home to see their families. One of the cities where the tills will ring loudest will be Hong Kong, where several days of celebratory events are being held. These kick off on Jan. 27 with the vibrant...